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Climate Researchers Feeling Heat From White House
Jeff K writes "Facts and science collide with tribal loyalties, the Washington Post reports: 'Scientists doing climate research for the federal government say the Bush administration has made it hard for them to speak forthrightly to the public about global warming. The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'"
Is this really a shocker? Bush has had a policy of denying global warming is a result of humans, the fact he is giving the NOAA extra money for research rather than prevention is quite interesting, global warming is something that is happening.
I remember years ago when the offical stance was there is no such thing as global warming, this has evolved to, there is no proof of global warming, to okay it exists but it isn't our fault, somehow I get the feeling the intention now is to attempt to prove it isn't caused by the biggest donators to the Bush administration.
When the whitehouse and the pentagon started to open up and declassify documents all those years ago, it was a good thing it felt like finally they are opening up, now things are going back to feeling more like the cold war, a policy of secrecy, spying (although internally now rather than on a foreign element), lies, and gagging the people with important information.
So as you feel your skin cancer forming and watch the ice caps come washing over us, just remember it isn't because of mankind, President Bush says so.
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"Although Bush and his top advisers have said that Earth is warming and human activity has contributed to this, they have questioned some predictions and caution that mandatory limits on carbon dioxide could damage the nation's economy."
Of course, the cost of doing nothing is much lower in the long run.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
It doesn't appear that US citizens even care about global warming. Maybe work on this first, or is the Federal goverment responsible for public morals?
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The result, the researchers say, is a danger that Americans are not getting the full story on how the climate is changing.'"
You only have to read a slashdot story on Climate Change (and the amount of time posters call it "global warming" to know that the vast majority of people all over the world are not getting the full story on climate change.
I'm more worried about the current administration's failure to legislate forced change to energy (particularly oil & gas) consumption, then I am about the American public's lack of awareness of the facts.
My pics.
"There has been a change in how we're expected to interact with the press," said Pieter Tans, who measures greenhouse gases linked to global warming and has worked at NOAA's Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder for two decades. He added that although he often "ignores the rules" the administration has instituted, when it comes to his colleagues, "some people feel intimidated -- I see that."
I think I like this Pieter Tans guy. I think there needs to be more scientists^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H people like him, who don't allow their convictions to be challenged by the administration.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Not to draw TOO many parallels, but remember when Galileo et al gave scientific findings that the governing powers didn't like? One of the causes, I feel from experiences with research, for the acceleration of scientific discovery is the change from a few centuries ago when science was done at the behest of the wealthy/powerful for status. As science was removed from the political, innovation and creativity flourished. This seems a bad sign of a growing politicization of scientific research, which is what kept things so slow for so long.
This story has a "both sides of the coin" situation to me, and one HUGE reason why I absolutely despise government financing and control of research. To say the Bush Administration is the problem is to ignore the reality of government -- it is seemingly all powerful, very corrupt, very easily manipulated if you have the cash, and never thinking about its citizens as individuals, just as voting groups.
Clinton was no better, no matter what the Progressives might say. This is the reason guys like this run for office -- to change the climate of thinking in the US and in the World. When it comes to public opinion, you may win on occasion when the big guys pick your side, you may lose on occasion. But when it comes to reality, you'll always lose -- the politicians will never do things the way you want them to, and they usually have hidden reasons for doing what they do.
If this doesn't help prove the case for withdrawing federal funding of research (and arts and dozens of other areas) to better allow researchers to publicize evidence for their beliefs, I can't think of what will.
There is no federal mandate for financing science or art or anythink of the sort, and the reason for it was so that the science and the art wouldn't be corrupted by opinion or political control.
You mean like new Orleans?
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
It's easy to fault Bush and to make him sound like a two year old. Oftentimes, it just requires you to copy and paste something he said.
But I would like to point out that there is a good article regarding this matter and it happens to take a look at it without political bias (if you believe that's possible).
Essentially what I'm asking you is, "Would a Democratic president be doing anything differently?" That's hard to decide--both sides are all talk and no action on this subject.
My work here is dung.
> don't want them to field questions on public policy
When public policy is related to science, talking about science is talking about public policy.
The current White House policy is to deny castrophic global climate change; therefore scientists are forbidden to tell the truth about the science of global climate change.
It is simply wrong to tell scientists to lie about their findings.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
"Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive,
R ICA.html [ornl.gov]
for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age." - TIME, Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
But NOW (I understand) they're sure?
Let's just point out:
"From around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago, North America experienced colder and generally more arid than present conditions. About 130,000 years ago, a warm phase slightly moister than the present began, and conditions at least as warm as the present lasted until about 115,000 years ago. Subsequent cooling and drying of the climate led to a cold, arid maximum about 70,000 years ago, followed by a slight moderation of climate with a second aridity maximum around 22,000-13,000 14C years ago. Conditions then quickly became warmer and moister, though with an interruption by cold and aridity in many areas around 11,000 14C years ago."
(Jonathan Adams, Environmental Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory)
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nercNORTHAME
Does the temperature seem to be moving up lately? Yep.
Beyond that, it seems to be a huge guessing game: are humans responsible for the current warming? (personally, I think we probably contribute significantly to it)
Is warming a catastrophe? Even IF you buy into the Cassandras, for every "coral reef is gonna die because the water's too warm!" it's hard to believe that there's not a corresponding expansion (northward) of coral-reef-able zones. For every acre of expanded desert, there's another acre of former-tundra that now has a growing season.
And don't even get me STARTED on "cities will flood" crap. Duh? For ANY city in any location, over a long enough span of time, the odds of it surviving unscathed are ultimately zero. Nobody built the big cities (generally starting as a cluster of wooden huts around a river or nice bay) with an eye toward their long term survivability - NOBODY. To presume at this point that we need to exert every effort to somehow FREEZE Earth's dynamic climate to accomodate habitation choices made 000's of years ago?
That's just stupid.
-Styopa
In all fairness, nobody talks about how government orgs like the EPA allocate funds for climate reasearch with heavy biases in favor of research that tends to promote the necissity of a larger EPA.
How is that fair when it ignores the peer review process that is designed to eliminate these biases?
Get the government money out of the freakin cliamte research studies to begin with, and they might actually become credible.
Straw man. You give no explanation as to how they are not credible, nor do you state how a non-government entity would be able to avoid this charge of budget increase bias. If one was to look at the credibility of the Bush Administration vs. the credibility of NOAA and EPA scientists, I don't see a scenario where the Bush Administration has higher credibility.
The GOP has been cynically playing the role of the skeptic, but they are not offering rational criticisms, just hyperbole and rhetoric. This is an old tactic of theirs, they prey on the idea that to be intellectually honest, one must consider all evidence and the misunderstanding that induction increases scientific knowledge. They do not offer counter evidence, or attempt to falsify the claims of climatologists, they attack the integrity of the climatologists using the old trick of infinite logical regression. Using infinite logical regression exposes the logical fallacy of justified knowledge, the root cause of the problem of induction. The Bush Administration and it's allies have simply not offered scientifically valid criticisms, yet they claim that they are correct in a matter of science.
The only way to defeat this utter absurdity is to realize that science does not rely on induction. They have not falsified theories on global warming, they have only attacked the inductionist view of the evidence pertaining to climate change. Unless you believe that scientific knowledge is increased by induction (a logical fallacy), their criticisms are useless to furthering the search for truth on climate change.
This is either more incompetence or dishonesty on the part of the Bush Administration. As before, neither is acceptable.
Arrogance is Confidence which lacks integrity. -- me
This is something that is affecting us all and beyond. Can the rest of the world not sanction the US on these issues?
They are attempting to undermine the very basis of rational thought just because it doesn't align with what they think the Bible says. This is NOT new -- Luther himself called reason "Satan's whore." There is a long and rich tradition of anti-intellectualism in this movement, and the denial of global warming (and then the backup position, that humans aren't involved) goes hand-in-hand with Intelligent Design. Also involved here is the fact that most evengelicals (who make up the vast bulk of the ID movement) believe that Jesus is coming back during their lifetime--i.e. end-times are nigh. If you literally believe that you and yours will be raptured to Jesus in the next few decades, then don't you think that might just influence your views on the necessity of environmental activism? So flinging about the label of religious nutjob, while entertaining, is not by any means gratuitious.
ID and "skepticism" over global warming are both integral parts of the same movement. This linkage is not figurative or polemical--we're talking about two fronts being fought by the same army. So bringing up ID in this context is nothing at all like calling someone a Nazi just because you don't like them.
Yes, moderators land hard on ID proponents, just as they would if someone said "I don't buy it that germs cause disease," or, "I don't believe in continental drift--it's just a theory." The astounding arrogance and willful ignorance of ID proponents deserves to be modded down. Would you be for "teaching the controversy" to placate a group that wanted to displace the germ theory in favor of the idea that demonic possession causes illness? No, eventually you'd get snippy and start humiliating them in public, because it's just a stupid position to take.